Weird News

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Sat Jul 16, 2005 11:03 pm

Conspiracy in Texas?  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Jul 16, 11:46 AM EDT Mysterious Texas Lights Draw Crowds By MICHAEL GRACZYK Associated Press Writer MARFA, Texas (AP) -- Nevada has Area 51. New Mexico has Roswell. Texas has the Marfa Lights. Whatever's out there sparkling or dancing across Mitchell Flat and toward the Chinati Mountains has both befuddled people and attracted them to this remote area east of Marfa for well over a century. They start converging about dusk on a desolate spot in the West Texas desert with a ridge view and an expanse of some 20 miles of treeless rangeland. A few bring lawn chairs. Some find a spot on concrete picnic tables. Others lean against a brick wall. With darkness toward to the east and the remnants of a spectacular sunset to the west, the first cries erupt. "Look! Look!" Fingers point. Binoculars get fine tuned. A few cameras click. All the attention focuses on specks of brilliance. Legend. Myth. Natural phenomenon. UFOs? "I just want to see for myself, and say I saw them," James Teems, 61, from Hobbs, N.M., said on a recent night. "I thought we'd come over and look," said his wife, Fern, 59. "Looks like campfires." That was the description back in the 1800s when cowboys and pioneers first noticed the lights. According to numerous accounts, they speculated they were camp fires or signal fires from Apaches who roamed the wilderness area around Texas' Big Bend. But, as the legend has it, when folks went over for a closer inspection, they found no sign of fires. And still haven't. "I'm having a hard time believing no one knows what it is," said Mike Thompson, who with his wife and two daughters made the stop as part of a trip to the region from their home about 300 miles away in San Angelo. "We've heard about this for a long time. We're here to see if we can see anything." The lights on a recent pair of June evenings appeared to float above the horizon, dip and occasionally flare. At times, there were two or three simultaneously. They generally moved left to right, up and down. Then there were periods of no lights. "It looks like car lights," one woman said. Could be. Highway U.S. 67, the main route between Marfa and Presidio, winds and seesaws 60 miles to the south on the Texas-Mexico border. A car's headlights easily could be detected in the darkness from miles away. But the lights were here before cars and even before electricity reached the region. There are numerous theories on what causes the phenomenon. Moonlight on mica veins sparkling off the mountains. Swamp gas. Static electricity. Atmospheric conditions created by warm and cold layers of air bending light rays that only can be seen from afar. Then there are the ghosts of the Conquistadores looking for gold, or the old Apache explanation of stars dropping to Earth. "I have seen strange lights that moved oddly and were definitely not on the ground," said Bernie Zelazney, with the Big Bend Astronomical Society. Some years ago he saw lights that were "bright bluish and red colors and would come together, then one would go away." "It was unusual," he said. Zelazney said one explanation he leans toward is called the piezoelectric effect, where voltage is created between moving solid surfaces - in this case, rock containing quartz that contracts and expands as the surface heats and cools. "There's a lot of quartz in the mountains out there," he said. The effect was discovered by Pierre Curie in 1883, coincidentally the same year rancher Robert Reed Ellison is credited with the first disclosure of the Marfa Lights. Joe Duncan, 46, owner of the Paisano Hotel, estimates a third of his customers come to see the Marfa Lights, which are celebrated with a festival each summer. He subscribes to the car-lights-on-the-highway theory. Sort of. "It's a hilly road, so it comes and goes and they see that," Duncan said. "But there have been too many people that are too intelligent that say there is something out there, and that if it was just the car lights somebody would have figured it out. They were definitely here before headlights. "Static electricity," he adds. "That's what old timers here have told me." Other local folks have stories of lights following them or bearing down on them as they travel lonely U.S. 90 between Alpine and Marfa. About a 10-minute drive east of town, the Texas Department of Transportation has erected a roadside rest stop that serves as the "Marfa Mystery Lights Viewing Area," according to the road sign. It's where the nightly gathering of the curious assembles, with everything from motorcycles to tractor-trailer rigs filling the free parking area. "I'd heard about it for years," said Jack Phillips, 52, who was touring the area by motorcycle with his wife and stopped for the show. "You can't beat the price." "I think it's somebody on the hill," Christi Collier, 54, of Austin, offered while gazing at the lights. "It's a big campfire." "I don't understand," said her companion, Lane Howard, 49. "They can tell us what happened on the moon a million years ago but they can't explain this?" 2005 The Associated Press.</td></tr></table>

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 1:31 am

Sleeping on the tracks?  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Boy was sleeping on tracks KILLED: Troopers unsure why 13-year-old picked railroad as place to rest. By TATABOLINE BRANT Anchorage Daily News (Published: July 17, 2005) A 13-year-old boy who was hit and killed by a locomotive Friday evening near Willow was asleep on the tracks when the train approached, Alaska State Troopers said Saturday. It is not clear why Austin Webb chose to lie down on the tracks just south of the Willow Creek Bridge, trooper spokesman Greg Wilkinson said. The boy had been fishing Friday in the creek with a friend, 12-year-old Michael Walker, and could have just been tired, he said. An autopsy will be performed on the boy in Anchorage, officials said. It was around 6:20 p.m. Friday that the Alaska Railroad passenger train, traveling from Fairbanks to Anchorage, rounded a corner near Willow Creek at a point close to the Parks Highway, and the crew spotted the boys. The train, 22 coaches long, was filled with more than 270 tourists and railroad and tourism workers. Railroad officials did not know Saturday exactly how fast it was going, but said trains generally travel at the track's authorized speed, which in this area was 49 mph. Four crew members -- an engineer, conductor, fireman and brakeman -- were on board, with two of them in the front locomotive, said Wendy Lindskoog, the Alaska Railroad's director of external affairs. The Associated Press reported that Webb's friend, Walker, was lying on the tracks with him when the train appeared. "The engineer saw the boys, blew his whistle, blew it again and then initiated emergency braking procedures," Wilkinson said. Only Walker managed to get out of the way. He suffered minor injuries and was treated at the scene, though it was unclear Saturday how he received the injuries. His family could not be reached for comment. The train's crew was brought to Anchorage where a peer support group waited to help them deal with the emotions of the episode, railroad officials said. "We feel terrible about this and our hearts go out to the victim's family, our employees and the passengers," Lindskoog said. A preliminary troopers' investigation into the accident shows the railroad is not at fault, Wilkinson said. No one should be on the railroad tracks, he said. The right of way extends to 100 feet on each side of the tracks. Ernie Piper, the Alaska Railroad's assistant vice president for operating safety, said Saturday that railroad officials had reviewed a computer recording of the train's functions at the time of the wreck. "The engineer's actions were consistent with his training and the operating rules," he said. Piper said nobody aboard the train reported injuries. This is at least the fifth time in the last decade that someone has been hit by an Alaska Railroad train and killed while walking or sleeping on the tracks, according to press reports. In 1999, a 50-year-old man was killed as he slept with his head on the tracks near Talkeetna. In 1998, a 42-year-old man sleeping on tracks near Seward was killed. One man was killed in 1996 and another in 1995 on tracks near Chugiak and Wasilla. One of those deaths was believed to be a suicide, while authorities suspected the other involved an intoxicated person sleeping on the tracks, according to news accounts at the time. "The ones we've had are predominantly people lying down," Piper said Saturday. While everyone involved in Friday's accident tries to cope with what happened, Piper, Wilkinson and Lindskoog said they hope the public takes home the message that they need to stay off the tracks. "We need to keep reminding people: Please stay away," Piper said. Reach Daily News reporter Tataboline Brant at tbrant@adn.com or 257-4321.</td></tr></table>

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 4:13 pm

Meanwhile, the gnomes are biding their time, building in numbers, all for the final invasion . . .  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Jul 19, 10:18 AM EDT Mystery of Missing Garden Gnomes Puzzling GREELEY, Colo. (AP) -- The mystery of the missing garden gnomes may prove harder to solve after all. Police found about 80 of the pint-sized figurines stashed in black plastic bags and surrounded by youngsters on Saturday, but investigators don't think the children stole them. In fact, Sgt. Dave Adams said the children most likely found them, so it's back to square one. Adams said police will call people who reported their gnomes stolen to come identify the decorative yard items. Elsie Schnorr, who had 30 gnomes stolen from her front lawn more than a month ago, will be among the first to retrieve her property. "I could identify every one of them. My name isn't on them, but I know which ones are mine. Most of mine are one-of-kind," she said. 2005 The Associated Press</td></tr></table>

Richard K Niner · Postby **Richard K Niner** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 4:16 pm

/me stocks up on Clamato.

Bocaj Claw · Postby **Bocaj Claw** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 1:44 am

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (VisibilityMissing @ Jul 19 2005, 12:13 PM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Meanwhile, the gnomes are biding their time, building in numbers, all for the final invasion . . .  </td></tr></table>  There was actually a book written about that. The day was saved by a dog whistle.

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 1:58 am

He fought the law, and . . . well you know.  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Jul 20, 6:53 PM EDT After Chase, Man Ends Up in Own Courtroom YANKTON, S.D. (AP) -- An Iowa man who led officers on a highway chase that ended at the Clay County Courthouse Wednesday ran inside and tried to barricade himself in the courtroom where he was scheduled to appear, authorities said. The Clay County Sheriff's Office was asked to help find a pickup truck suspected in a hit-and-run accident on Interstate 29 in Union County. A state Highway Patrol officer Wednesday was pursuing the vehicle on Highway 50 into Vermillion, where the man stopped the truck in the middle of the street and backed into the courthouse retaining wall, said Clay County Sheriff Andy Howe. "It seemed to just get more and more strange," Howe told KVHT radio in Yankton Wednesday. "Typically the pursuits don't come right to us as this one did. Officers actually left the sheriff's office and the police department to go assist with the pursuit, only to find themselves right back here." Jada Coover, of Sioux City, Iowa, had been scheduled to appear at the courthouse on charges of attempting to tamper with anhydrous ammonia, which is used to make methamphetamine. After stopping the truck, Coover jumped out, ran into the courthouse and headed upstairs to the courtroom. The judge in his case had just dismissed the jury, and jurors were leaving the room as Coover burst in, Howe said. Officers cleared the hallways and asked people to leave the building. "He attempted to barricade himself in by holding the door shut, but officers were able to get in and take him into custody," Howe said. Coover was arrested on charges including failure to appear, felony eluding, driving under the influence and disorderly conduct. He is also wanted on outstanding warrants for possession of meth and burglary tools from Woodbury and Sioux counties in Iowa, Howe said. He was being held Wednesday on $25,000 bond. 2005 The Associated Press.</td></tr></table>  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> A novel way to stock a petting zoo:  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Zoo Owner Accused of Locking in Customers Wed Jul 20, 6:26 PM ET LITCHFIELD, Conn. - The owner of an exotic animal and petting zoo is facing criminal charges for allegedly locking up a some people. James A. Mazzarelli, 61, of Goshen, has been charged with unlawful restraint, breach of peace and interfering with an officer. Mazzarelli, the owner of Action Wildlife, was charged with an incident on July 9. One of the six people locked in the park, Kathleen H. Dickey, of Torrington, called 911 to report her party was stuck in the park, state police said. Dickey told police Mazzarelli intentionally locked the gates, keeping her from driving their vehicle out of the parking lot. Dickey, two other adults and three children were prohibited from leaving the compound. When police contacted Mazzarelli, he told them that Dickey and her group failed to pay the admission fee, police said. Mazzarelli pleaded not guilty to the charges at his arraignment in Bantam Superior Court Monday.</td></tr></table>

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Thu Jul 21, 2005 11:53 pm

Just think: "What would Basil Fawlty do?"  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Jul 21, 7:12 PM EDT Bears Wander Into Motels in New Mexico Maybe it's an early hibernation thing. A bear wandered into a Raton motel on Monday and a second bear broke into a Taos Ski Valley motel a day later. The bear that walked through the front doors of the Raton motel possibly was lured by the enticing smell of fresh popcorn, officials said. "He walked in, went to the pay phones, then straight toward the pool," said desk clerk Kimbra Pacheco. Lodgers with newspapers chased the bear through an enclosed pool area until game officers arrived. A Department of Game and Fish officer shot the animal with a tranquilizer dart. Department officers later killed the bear, saying it had been trapped and moved from Raton a few weeks earlier and had lost its fear of humans. The second bear forced its way through a window screen Tuesday at a Taos Ski Valley motel. The desk clerk called 911, but the bear fled before the town marshal and game officers arrived. Officers have set a trap to try to capture the animal, which officials believe was attracted by the smell of food being cooked by lodgers on a grill outside their room. The recent hot, dry weather in northern New Mexico may have forced some bears to search for food in different places, the department said. The agency said people who live in bear country should keep anything that would attract them away from living areas and keep all doors and windows closed at night. --- On the Net: Game and Fish publications: <a href='http://www.wildlife.state.nm.us' target='_blank'>http://www.wildlife.state.nm.us</a> 2005 The Associated Press</td></tr></table>  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> You mean, the dead are not a good target market?  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Jul 21, 6:13 PM EDT Marketing Group Takes the Dead Off Lists By ERIN McCLAM Associated Press Writer NEW YORK (AP) -- The nation's largest direct marketing group set up a registry Thursday to remove dead people from its telemarketing, e-mail and direct mail lists - for $1. The Direct Marketing Association, which has more than 5,200 members in the United States and 44 other countries, said its Deceased Do-Not-Contact list was designed to help families dealing with the loss of a loved one. "The DMA recognizes how emotionally and logistically difficult the process of handling someone's final affairs can be," Pat Kachura, the group's senior vice president for ethics and consumer affairs, said in a statement. The organization said the $1 fee was for credit card verification, and was designed to prevent fraud. "We're concerned people will abuse the list, putting the names of friends on it, that kind of thing," Kachura said in a telephone interview. "So we're very concerned that those who are on the list are those who should be on the list." The idea follows the government's popular Do Not Call list, which allows consumers to sign up online and imposes fines on telemarketers when they call those consumers. The list, set up in 2003, has more than 97 million numbers. The DMA said it would also provide its list of the deceased to companies that are not members of the organization. Mitch Katz, a spokesman for the Federal Trade Commission, which set up the Do Not Call list, said relatives and spouses can still register the deceased's phone number on the list, provided they live in the same residence. "It's horribly upsetting to someone who's alive if you get a call and it's for your husband who has passed away," he said. "I can imagine why people wouldn't want to get those calls." --- On the Net: DMA deceased registry: <a href='http://preference.the-dma.org/cgi/ddnc.php' target='_blank'>http://preference.the-dma.org/cgi/ddnc. ... r>National Do Not Call registry: <a href='http://www.donotcall.gov' target='_blank'>http://www.donotcall.gov</a> 2005 The Associated Press.</td></tr></table>

Muninn · Postby **Muninn** » Fri Jul 22, 2005 7:59 am

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (VisibilityMissing @ Jul 22 2005, 12:53 AM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Just think: "What would Basil Fawlty do?"  </td></tr></table>  Probably hide until Sybil nags the bear to death.

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 1:24 am

You need to watch out for the carnivorous Hawaiian caterpillars . . .  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Hawaiian caterpillars hunt like spiders -report Fri Jul 22,10:18 AM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tiny, snail-eating caterpillars found in Hawaiian rain forests tie up their prey with sticky silk and snack on them at leisure, surprised scientists said on Thursday. It is the first time that caterpillars that eat snails or any other mollusk have been found, the researchers write in Friday's issue of the journal Science. And while caterpillars of all kinds spin silk to make cocoons, this is the first time one has been seen to use it as spiders do to capture prey. "Although all caterpillars have silk glands, this predatory caterpillar uses silk in a spiderlike fashion to capture and immobilize prey," Daniel Rubinoff and William Haines at University of Hawaii wrote in their report. The caterpillars of the newly described species, Hyposmocoma molluscivora, are small -- about a third of an inch (8 mm) long. Wrapped in their cocoons, they "lumber along" leaves, Rubinoff and Haines said. "The caterpillars do not eat plant foliage, even when starving," they wrote. Instead, they hunt Tornatellides snails. When they find one, "they immediately begin to spin silk webbing attaching the snail shell to the leaf on which it rests, apparently to prevent the snail from sealing itself against the leaf or dropping to the ground," the researchers wrote. "The larva (caterpillar) then wedges its case next to or inside the snail shell and stretches much of its body out of its silk case, pursuing the retreating snail to the end of the shell from which there is no escape. We observed 18 attacks by 10 different larvae following this sequence." Sometimes the caterpillars decorate their silk casings with empty snail shells, probably as a form of camouflage, the researchers said. The caterpillars eventually become small moths. The researchers say they are surprised by the findings and note the caterpillars join a range of unusual Hawaiian fauna, including spiders that impale their prey in flight. "Caterpillars and terrestrial snails co-occur widely on all the continents where they are present, but only in Hawaii have caterpillars evolved to hunt snails," they wrote. </td></tr></table>

Gizensha · Postby **Gizensha** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 2:32 am

What freaks me out about that is "What if 'The Fly' happened with that type of catapilla?"

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 5:17 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Smoke bomber sets mailbox on fire By Nugget Staff Photos by Nancy McGuire SMOKE BOMB Nome police officer Brian Weyauanna retrieved a smoke bomb from Nome's mailbox on Wednesday, July 13. Letters were singed and spray painted with yellow foam residue. The Nome Police and Volunteer Fire Department responded to a small fire in Nomes lone outside mailbox located between the Federal Building and the Wells Fargo Bank building last Wednesday at 9:30 p.m.The NVFD extinguished the small fire before postal workers opened the drop box and found mail, mostly from Wells Fargo, covered in yellow foam with two letters burned and others singed on the corners. Police officer Brian Weyauanna found a cherry-sized smoke bomb among the letters. According to postal worker Mary Straub, only two letters were scorched and 10 sustained minimal damage. There was no damage to the mailbox. The yellow foam residue was worse than the fire, said Straub. She said that a smoke bomb in the mail drop is new. People sometimes seem to confuse the blue mail drop with a trash can, and postal workers have found soda pop cans, toys, rocks, beer cans, even dried dog feces among the mail in the past. Straub advises people to use the inside mail drop since it is safer, and during winter, snow tends to get into the mailbox. </td></tr></table>  Photo by Nancy McGuire WHAT'S THE DAMAGE? Police officer Brian Weyauanna and postal worker Charlie Painter check out the contents of Nome's mail- box after a smoke bomb attack set the box on fire.

Rooster · Postby **Rooster** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 6:14 pm

I love this one from The Darwin Awards  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Iraqi terrorist Khay Rahnajet, didn't put enough postage on a letter bomb, and it came back marked "return to sender." He opened the package and was blown away. </td></tr></table>  Made me almost wet my pants. <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... ailwag.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tailwag.gif' />

Bocaj Claw · Postby **Bocaj Claw** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 7:10 pm

I know I should feel sympathy for my fellow inhabitant of this planet but all i can think of is: "HA HA! Serves ya right you crazy stupid terrorist!"

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 10:43 pm

You can't be too careful when the Anti-Christ is involved . . .  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Vampire fraudsters take bite of Sicilian's savings Sun Jul 24, 1:24 AM ET PALERMO, Italy (Reuters) - An Italian couple stole 50,000 euros from a woman in the Sicilian city of Palermo after convincing her they were vampires who would impregnate her with the son of the Anti-Christ if she did not pay them. The man, a cabaret singer, and his girlfriend took the money from their victim over four years by selling her pills at 3,000 euros each that they said would abort the Anti-Christ's son. Police uncovered the fraud after the 47-year-old woman's family became concerned when they discovered she had spent all her savings, local news agencies AGI and ANSA reported. </td></tr></table>

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 12:26 am

Cats can't taste sugar. . .  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Why cats will never live the sweet life Mon Jul 25,11:49 AM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cats may like ice cream, but it is not the sugary taste that appeals to them because they are genetically unable to taste sweet flavours, researchers reported on Monday. Domestic cats and big cats alike have a slightly different version of the sweet receptor gene than other mammals, the British and U.S. scientists found. Any cat owner knows that cats have individual preferences, but cats will turn their noses up at sugary treats that do not contain some other ingredient such as butter or gelatin. "One possible explanation for this behaviour is that felines are unable to detect sweet-tasting compounds like sugars and high intensity sweeteners because their sweet taste receptor is defective," said Xia Li, a molecular geneticist at Cornell University in New York, who helped lead the study. "An obvious place to look, therefore, is at the genes coding for the sweet-taste receptor." So they did. Mammals taste sweet flavours via a receptor, a kind of molecular doorway, called T1R on their taste bud cells. It has two subunits, known as T1R2 and T1R3. Each is coded for by a separate gene. Writing in the online journal Public Library of Science Genetics, Li and colleagues said they found a change in the gene encoding the T1R2 protein in domestic cats, tigers and cheetahs. "Other than this sweet blindness, the cat's sense of taste is normal," the researchers wrote in their report. "The non-functional sweet receptor provides a molecular explanation for why cats have no avidity for sweets," said Joseph Brand, a biophysicist at Cornell who worked on the study. "Looking beyond this elegant explanation, one can contemplate the importance that this molecular change had on the evolution of the cat's carnivorous behaviour," Brand added in a statement. "What we still don't know is -- which came first: carnivorous behaviour or the loss of the T1R2 protein? With regard to the gene, is this a case of use it or lose it?" Many animals in the carnivore family like sweet things, including bears, dogs, raccoons and others. "I say jokingly, no wonder cats are cranky -- not only do they have to hunt for their food, but they also can't enjoy a sweet dessert," Brand said. </td></tr></table>  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>. Sasquatch makes an appearance in the Yukon Territory, Mulder and Scully to comment at eleven . . .  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Canadian lab to test "sasquatch" hair 1 hour, 40 minutes ago VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - The debate over the existence of sasquatch, aka Bigfoot, an ape-like creature said to haunt the wilderness of western Canada has entered the world of modern DNA testing. A laboratory will test hair samples that several residents of Teslin, Yukon, say were left when the large, but so-far mythological creature made a late-night run through their community in early July. University of Alberta wildlife geneticist David Coltman, who agreed to do the tests as a favor to a colleague, said on Monday that scientists have cataloged the DNA of nearly all large animals in the Yukon such as bears and bison. "So we'll compare it to all of that, and if it doesn't match anything, then it's potentially interesting," said Coltman, who suspects the hair was actually left behind by a much more mundane Yukon bison. "If sasquatch is indeed a primate, then we would expect the sample to be closer to humans or chimpanzees or gorillas," Coltman said. The legend of a large, hairy, two-legged creature lurking in the mountains of western Canada and the United States dates back to before Europeans settled the continent. This was the second report of the creature near Teslin in just over a year. In the latest sighting, a group of Teslin residents told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. they heard branches cracking and saw a large human-like creature run by a house. It left behind large footprints, they said, and the hair tufts that were given to wildlife officials. Coltman expects to have his results on Thursday and said that even if the hair turns out not to be from a sasquatch, the process should serve as good way to get students interested in the field of DNA testing. "It's sort of like a wildlife CSI story," he said. </td></tr></table>

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